What composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa does with text might be considered the exact opposite job of a music critic. Instead of putting music into words, she turns words into music — not just setting them for songs, but using them as the jumping-off point for much of what she does.

With her literary term-titled two-disc album “in medias res,” the Rome Prize winner draws mostly on Russian, German, British and American classics, ultimately creating music that is meaty and substantial, cerebral but not remote. The release culminates her three years as composer in residence with the pioneering Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

The music often sounds as if it might have come out of a film score — not splashy blockbuster schmaltz, but something startlingly, viscerally evocative. Her creative soundscapes can be starkly serious or borderline absurd, but they are rarely uninteresting. They’re strongly executed by Gil Rose and the orchestra, though occasionally a more transparent sound might more effectively bring out intricacies.

“Roam,” based on a passage from Alexander Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” begins with mournful, lonely solo lines and grows to a thick, unsettled, churning atmosphere. It grows increasingly agitated then lingers uncomfortably, the sound of the orchestral mass subtly expanding and contracting with what liner notes describe as “smeared harmonies.” A heavy mood prevails.

The title work takes on a more festive tone. The first movement, “and,” features a close-harmonied brass fanfare: martial, driving rhythms and swooning glissandi that build to raucous heights, at one point resembling a swarming hornet’s nest as the sounds of high strings and winds pile up.

The second movement, “or,” contains many of the same elements but also features private-sounding stirrings of harp and piano that provide refreshing contrast.

Concerto for Two Violins, written for and performed by Carla Kihlstedt and Colin Jacobsen, is more than the title suggests: Halfway through, Kihlstedt’s voice swoops in with a song from Goethe’s “Faust.” The pure, straight-toned vocals are similar to those employed in “unfinish’d, sent,” which utilizes a short text from Shakespeare’s “Richard III.” It’s a difficult first listen — but not in the sense of difficult implying hard on the ears. Rather, it’s dense, original and full of intriguing ideas that slip away and morph in elusive ways that make you want to hear them again.

The second CD brings a series of short solo instrumental works whose form comes partly from Luciano Berio’s “Sequenzas.” Ernest Hemingway’s very short story — “For sale, baby shoes: never used.”— is inspiration for the pieces named “Synopses #1-15,” each of which has a six-word title. These include the slinky double bass solo “I’m Not That Kind of Lawyer” and the amusing ode to fatherhood “No, No, No — Put That Down,” for trombone. Many of these works made it into the larger-scale pieces on the first disc, and listening to the pair in reverse provides a compelling view into Bielawa’s composition process.
— Ronni Reich

The Union
Elton John/Leon Russell (Decca)

T Bone Burnett is having an album producer’s dream year. He whipped up a dust bowl around John Mellencamp, slid Elvis Costello into a ’20s speakeasy and sauntered into a dusty old saloon with Willie Nelson. For his latest revival act, he’s recast Elton John, heretofore presumed lost in the wilderness of easygoing adult contemporary music, as a gritty Delta blues pianist. He’s had help. Elton’s role model Leon Russell shares top billing with the star on “The Union,” and matches him chord for chord. Robert Randolph, Neil Young and Booker T. make appearances on the 14-song set, as do Burnett favorites Marc Ribot (guitar) and Jim Keltner (drums). Elton John the maudlin balladeer hasn’t checked out completely, but Russell pushes him to find broad gospel chords and boisterous leads. Frequently it’s hard to tell who is playing what. When the two pianists bounce parts off of each other on “Hey Ahab” or settle into a stately groove on the Civil War ballad “Gone to Shiloh,” it’s 176 keys of bliss.
— Tris McCall
Electric Endicott

Gary Wilson (Stones Throw)

In between the titanic releases of new discs by Kanye West and Taylor Swift, quasi-legendary oddball Gary Wilson slipped a new album of his own into the marketplace. If “Electric Endicott” sells one-hundredth as well as Swift’s or West’s, Wilson and Stones Throw Records will be ecstatic. That said, Wilson shares more with the pop stars than his bizarre appearance and experimental sound suggests. Like Swift, he tells autobiographical tales of young love in small towns — but while the country-pop star’s fairy tales are delivered by a blonde sweetheart, Wilson’s are sung by a masked fiftysomething obsessor who likes to pour bags of flour on his head. And like West, Wilson seems to exist in a sphere so choked by his own artwork that there is barely any air to breathe. On this album, Wilson dedicates his twisted lounge-jazz, seedy synthpop and machine-meltdown music to the same group of girls without surnames he’s always chasing after: Linda, Mary, Karen, Kathy. But the most heartfelt love song on this strangely fascinating nostalgia trip is the one he sings to his long-lost pet duck.
— Tris McCall
O Solitude

Andreas Scholl; Accademia Bizantina; Stefano Montanari (Decca)

Andreas Scholl has been one of the most prominent countertenors of the past few decades, and he still understandably commands a vast fan base. Yet his latest album, all music by English baroque composer Henry Purcell, tends to drag, with Scholl’s round, gentle alto-range tones sounding unfocused and lacking a core. When the lively Accademia Bizantina ensemble has a solo opportunity, or when Scholl shares a duet with fellow countertenor Christophe Dumaux, he tends to be upstaged. But there are still individual tracks worth hearing. Purcell often broke up or repeated words for dramatic effect, and Scholl and the ensemble affectionately and persuasively emphasize the composer’s unique method of communication. In “Sweeter Than Roses,” Scholl displays impressive flexibility, speeding up as he describes trembling and giving an icy depiction of a kiss that made him freeze. “Music for a While” flows nicely, far from the dirge it’s sometimes inexplicably turned into. The title song, though, is best delivered with unaffected openness and stunningly pure sound.